Thoughts on classical music in London, on the web and beyond. By Gavin Dixon.

Sunday, 27 September 2015

Evidence Grigory Sokolov refused the Cremona Music Award

A fascinating document came to
light this morning, a letter from Grigory Sokolov to the committee of the
Mondomusica Festival, apparently turning down the Cremona Music Award on the
grounds that it would mean he appeared on a list with Norman Lebrecht, a
previous winner. His closing line is particularly incendiary “According to my
ideas about elementary decency, it is shame to be in the same award-winners
list with Lebrecht.”

But is it real? The website on
which it appears, http://www.grigory-sokolov.com,
has no official links with Sokolov or his management. From what I can gather,
it is registered in Australia and hosted in Israel. Given the antagonism that
Lebrecht generates, there could be no shortage of potential candidates for a
forgery, although the handwriting is impressively similar to that on a Sokolov
letter that does appear on his management’s website.

Well, here's proof at least
that he was announced as a winner of the award, but that he had been removed
from the list by the time they were actually presented. Here is the webpage
announcing the winners today:

And here is how it looked on 12
September, four days before the date on the letter (courtesy of the Google cache).

No doubt the details will all
become clear in due course, including the Lebrecht connection, for which I’ve
no proof here. But it certainly seems that Sokolov turned down the award.

4 comments:

Dear Gavin,just to clarify the official position of CremonaFiere, organizer of Cremona Mondomusica and the Cremona Music Award, I’d like to inform you that CremonaFiere launched the Cremona Music Award, which is given within Cremona Mondomusica and Piano Experience since 2014, in order to reward the international personalities that have arisen in their respective areas of interest in the world of music.

Maestros Penderecki and Belisari, and Corinna Da Fonseca Wollheim have come to Cremona to receive the prize, while Maestro Sokolov sent us a letter to refuse the prize, justifying this choice with the presence of Norman Lebrecht among the people awarded in 2014.

We don't want to discuss the personal relationship between Maestro Sokolov and Norman Lebrecht; we are just very sorry about Sokolov's choice, especially considering that Franco Panozzo, Sokolov's manager, sent us an email on August 4th, 2015, saying that Maestro Sokolov would have been very happy to come to Cremona to receive the prize, if he had been in Italy during Cremona Mondomusica. We also have to say that before that (June 29th, 2015) we informed Franco Panozzo about the people awarded in 2014, Norman Lebrecht included.So we have been surprised that just a few days before the prize-giving ceremony Maestro Sokolov took this decision.

As Lebrecht refused to post my comment on his blog Slippedisc, I will copy-paste it here for all to read. He cannot bury his shameless actions forever.

Recall last year that soon after Sokolov's wife passed away, the pianist published a cryptic letter which began, 'To my astonishment, I have learned about some delirious inventions made on the subject of my wife's life'. This can be read in full on Sokolov's website or on AMC. The cause of that was most likely Norman Lebrecht's blog post in which he speculated about Sokolov marrying his dead cousin's wife, going into detail about the apparent Sokolov family tree. You can find this blog post still on Slippedisc, and the links at the bottom of it which lead to the old Sokolov website. Click any of those links and you'll see a message which states that Norman Lebrecht should not be believed. Lebrecht's rash and shameless speculation about Sokolov's recently deceased wife is most likely the reason why Sokolov refuses to associate with him. I want to make this clear as it is the only sensible public explanation for Sokolov's refusal. There may be private reasons no one can know about, but the public one is there for all to see.

On another matter....I've attended Sokolov's recitals for nearly 15 years and he is without doubt the greatest pianist I've ever heard. If you can't hear him in the UK--which I used to--then take a trip to Brussels or Amsterdam and it'll most likely turn into one of the great concert experiences of your life.

.

Gavin Dixon is a writer, journalist, editor and blogger specialising in classical music. He writes reviews and articles for a number of publications and websites. Gavin has a PhD on the Symphonies of Alfred Schnittke and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is also a member of the editorial team behind the ‘Alfred Schnittke Collected Works’ edition, which recently began publication in St Petersburg. More information on Gavin’s writing activities can be found at his website: www.gavindixon.info